Dear Keith,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request dated 12th October.

Really Local Group received funding in each round of the BFI administered DCMS Culture Recovery Fund for Independent Cinemas in England.

In the first round, the BFI offered ‘Safety Grants’ to enable cinemas to put the necessary measures in place to ensure the safety of their workforce and the public and (in various iterations), Operational deficit funding via ‘Business Sustainability Grants’ in Rounds 1-3 to enable cinemas to reach a breakeven point during the pandemic, both when trading was possible (restrictions permitting) and when re-opening represented a better value for money option for those organisations compared to staying closed.

Applications to the Culture Recovery Fund were assessed against a variety of criteria including cultural, community value, inclusion as well as detailed financial reviews (an example summary of such an assessed for Catford Mews is included below). The BFI's funding amounts to Really Local Group were 'up to' amounts, meaning payments were phased and assessed against evidenced reporting of need, so often final payments were lower than the initial published amount or 'rolled over' from a previous round if underspend was reported.

BFI's robust financial assessments would result in adjustments made to the applied for amounts. The adjustments would exclude inelible costs, calculate reserves, and any carry over of funding from previous rounds.

All Culture Recovery Fund awards were proposed on the basis that the funding will support the organisation to break-even during defined periods (plus an additional sum to cover the loss during the initial closure period), eligible small scale capital expenditure, and where applied for, a provisional sum of up to 8 weeks reserves, where reserves had been previously accessed to meet the costs to enable the venue to be able to re-open once it was safe to do so; and where it had demonstrated the best route to long term financial viability.

Example of the community and cultural value as well as inclusion offer of Catford Mews from an assessment summary;
Catford Mews is the only cinema in Catford, SE London, and the first one to open for 20 years. It was still in its establishing phase when Covid-19 happened. The cinema claims to have played a significant part in Lewisham being appointed London Borough of Culture 2021. The sense of community is extremely important and that differs from the multiplex. Without it, the local diverse and socio-economically disadvantaged population would be much the worse off, and an organisation that offers support and employment to local people would be gone. The cinema works with young people in a number of ways: subsidised school screenings; working with families with vulnerable children; workshops; free screening for Catford Young Peoples' Film collective; provides employee opportunities for people from local communities as the start of career progression; educational events include collaborations with Into Film, No Planet B with Q&A and talks including pre-recorded Q&As and intros. The programme is 'quality mainstream' prioritising BAME titles and a commitment to LGBTQ+ programming - including short films by women of the MENA region in collaboration with Habibi Collective; the Valentine and International Women’s Season focused on LGBTQI and POC. The cinema also held an International Women’s Festival and Black History Month screenings. Catford has traditionally been a socio-economically disadvantaged area with a diverse population, and this cinema is an essential local amenity, supporting other cultural activity. The cinema prioritises the local community, which is diverse, and seeks to redress historic exclusions in the film industry through EDI initiatives such as: diverse programming and workforce; removing access barriers; holding diversity talks with staff. The cinema works with film collectives such as UNDR LNDN - for young creatives, T A P E Collective - special film curating, and We Do Good Disco - retro film and bingo nights. It provides relaxed and captioned screenings; subsidised school screenings, and has a partnership with SIGNAL (Autism in Lewisham) for outreach to relaxed screenings for children with ASD and other learning difficulties.

A full external evaluation of the DCMS Culture Recovery Fund can be read and downloaded here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...

Regards,

Sian
BFI Freedom of Information Team

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Dear Keith,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information Review request.

We will respond as soon as we are able.

Regards,

Sian
BFI Freedom of Information Team

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Dear Keith,

Thank you for your FOI review request dated 6th November. We have reviewed our response and records accordingly and are able to confirm the below.

The DCMS Culture Recovery Fund has long-since closed, and the team who oversaw it has been disbanded. We only now hold topline data in our records (including initial applications, assessments and funding amounts. Examples of which were previously shared with you) for the fund, rather than the individual specific financial details and reporting.

For the benefit of doubt, all funding was rigoursly assessed by a team of accountants, against evidenced cost reports with random audits regularly taking place (although Catford Mews was not selected for a full audit in our Post Event Assurance process). Funding was awarded primarily for Operational Expenditure to ensure that venues broke even within a time-limited period, as well as a final reserves top-up if the venue qualified. Reserves were capped at 8 weeks, and on a net-free cash basis. All operational expenditure funding during periods of closure was net of sales also.

It is reasonable to assume that operating expenditure costs during the period were allocated to overhead costs as would be expected. As a new venture at the time, there might well have been some serviceable debt falling due during the period, along with essential maintenance for safety reasons. As per our previous correspondence what we cannot comment on is the explicit question of whether funding was paid to Lewisham council. There were many instances of rent moratoriums during that challenging period and we would've been encouraging of that to ensure maximum value for the grant funding we were administering.

We sincerely hope the matter between Really Local Group and Lewisham council is resolved as soon as possible to ensure the cinema can continue to deliver for its community.

Regards,

Sian
BFI Freedom of Information Team

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